ANGER IN RELATIONSHIP: Concluding Post

Attack -

Attacking another who provides unwelcome feedback concerning your anger and its consequences. Trying to control another's feedback by putting overt and/or emotional pressure on them.

Avoidance -

Avoiding issues where you are likely to be confronted with having to deal with your own angry feelings. Withdrawing emotionally and physically. There is probably no single best way to handle anger in a marriage, but the following techniques for anger management have proven helpful to other couples:

You really need to read the earlier parts of this write-up. 

ANGER IN RELATIONSHIPS

ANGER IN RELATIONSHIPS (PART 2)

ANGER IN RELATIONSHIP (PART 3)

1. Inventory your anger -: Stop, look and listen!
Where is your anger coming from? How long have you felt this way? Is your anger reasonable or unreasonable? Could you be magnifying distorting things, blowing things out of proportion? Is this issue worth fighting over another, less volatile way to deal with it? What will help the two of you reduce and resolve your feelings of anger?

2. Set limits on your anger -: Don't let your anger get out of control. Under the right circumstances, it is all too easy for a ring frame to become a roaring inferno. Don't go at each others jugular vein. Marriage is not gladiator sport, where you must win or die. Limit your anger to the issue at hand. Don't go back ten years and dig up things that will only add fuel to the fire. Make your focus as specific as possible and stick to it. Don't turn your anger into a guerrilla warfare that lasts forever. Resolve the anger as rapidly as you can. Some marriage counselors suggest that fifteen minutes of arguing is enough. After that amount of time, give each other a ''time out" sign and take brake. If the issue absolutely has to be discussed, come back together in a half-hour and try again, this time discuss, don't argue.

3. Draw on other methods to drain your anger -: Vigorous physical workouts are effective anger busters. A brisk twenty - minutes walk - together or separately releases pent - up tension that otherwise might get dumped into the argument, causing painful damage. If there seems to be recurring pattern to your anger, get yourself a punching bag and workout your anger on it. Take a breath and exhale. Count to fifty and count to fifty again and again. Stop feeding your anger with  dark, hostile, negative thinking. Talk to yourself, use self talk to de- escalate your anger and bring it down to a more manageable level. Tell yourself to calm down and regain self control. Ask yourself - and each other - if this episode is really worth it, separate your feelings from the fact. Having angry feelings toward each other does not necessarily mean you're dealing with reality. Has one or both of you misinterpreted things? Are you being pretty or hypersensitive? Are you maintaining genuine respect for each others needs and overall go?

4. Look for opportunities to compromise -: No one is always right. If one of you consistently give-in to the other, feelings of power and victimization will develop; the other will be trapped in this pattern. Compromising is a good way for both of you to win and come away reasonable satisfied. Compromising can be an effective way to reduce anger levels.

5. Listen don't just react -: Many spouses admit that they do far too much talking, that they don't listen well to their partner. They feel they have to protect their turf and defend their point of view to the bitter end.  If this approach continues, the bitter end will come sooner than either expects.

Famous theologian Paul Tillich said that the component of good communication and deepening intimacy brings down anger levels because it affirms the other spouse as a valuable person who has something worth saying. Listen and learn from each other, listen and heal together.

6. Push for a rapid resolutions -: Ongoing quarrels severely better and bruise a marriage, especially if the quarrels focus on the same issues. If you fight about the same issue again and again, you have evidently never resolved it; your relationship is bruised and in need of healing. Try to resolve your anger as rapidly as you can. Saint Paul stressed the importance of not letting the sun go down on your anger. If it does, it will probably rise on your anger, too, and that is not healthy for either of you or your marriage.

Unresolved anger does not have to be the great unbeatable for that perpetually threatens a marital relationship. Anger can be successfully monitored and managed to become a tool for change and growth. But whether it becomes a toxin or a tool is up to the two of you. Use anger sparingly, carefully, and well. The overall health of your marriage depends on it.

LOVE :-
Love is patient, love is kind. It is not jealous, (Love) is not pompous, it is not inflated, it is not rude, it does not brood over injury, it does not rejoice over wrong doing but rejoices with the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, Hope all things, and endures all things. 1 Corinthians 13 : 4-7.

Exploring how I handle my anger in my relationships.

Write out your answers to the following questions -:
1. To what extent is managing your anger a problem for you in your relationship?

2. How good are you at tuning into your anger feelings?

3. To what extent do you get angry with yourself (anger in) rather than with other people (anger out)?

4. How confident a person are you and to what extent does this affect your proneness to anger?

5. To what extent do you consider that other people make you angry? Give reasons for your answer.

6. Are you aware of engaging in any of the following defensive processes to avoid assuming responsibility for your anger and its consequences?
* Denial
* Projection
* Reaction formation
* Defensive Lying
* Attack
* Avoidance

7. What are the other feelings for instance hurt or anxiety that you experience when you are angry?

8. List the kinds of thoughts you have when you are angry about the other person involved

9. What verbal, voice, body and action messages do you send when you are angry?

10. Have you ever been, or do you consider you have the potential to be, physically violent when angry? If so, please elaborate.

11. When in a relationship do you or your partner take a teamwork approach to helping each other manage anger? If so please explain.

You can reformulate unrealistic anger - becoming personal rules into ones that are more self - supporting. Some of the main characteristics of self - supporting personal rules are the following :

A) Expressing preference rather than demands

B) A coping emphasis rather than perfectionism

C) Being based on your own valuing processes

D) Flexibility, being amenable to change in the light of new information; and

E) Leading to a functional rating of specific characteristics and to the absence of global self - rating of your person hood.

Here are some examples of reformulating anger 
- evoking personal rules into more realistic rules:

- Unrealistic rule: "I must always get revenge"

- Realistic rule: "My interests are not best served by thinking in terms of revenge. I can work out more appropriate strategies for meeting my needs and keeping my relationship intact"

- Unrealistic rule : My partner must not criticize me"

- Realistic rule : " Feedback is important in our relationship, I would prefer that my partner is tactful when giving feedback"

Special thanks to
William Rabior, and
Richard Nelson - Jones.

Think of one or more of recent situations in your relationships where you have felt angry, and try working on it to avoid reoccurring.

Good luck and be Anger free!!!!!!

Have a nice weekend 

You really need to read the earlier parts of this write-up. 

ANGER IN RELATIONSHIPS

ANGER IN RELATIONSHIPS (PART 2)

ANGER IN RELATIONSHIP (PART 3)